Weird Looking Sea Creatures

An alert Angler-fish swims in the dark, cool waters nearby the Norway’s Lofoten Islands. The fish has shapeless skin and a distinctive face but is best recognized for its method of feeding itself. While traveling the seafloor, the fish makes use of a built-in rod with a tempting filament “lure” that catches the attention of small fish. 

This striking fish has red lips and fins made for wandering the seafloor nearby the Galápagos Islands. The red-lipped batfish is one of various 60 species of Bat-fishes, “flattened” from life on the seafloor and adapted to stroll on modified pectoral and pelvic fins. Like other Angler-fishes, Bat-fishes also use a built-in fishing rod snout, equipped with a retractable appendage, to attract victims near to their lips.

 

A vibrantly colored clown Frog-fish boasts its stuff on a reef nearby Bali, Indonesia. Members of the Frog-fish family in general keep a much lower profile, depending on the art of camouflage—even changing colors—to maintain out of sight in their reef homes. Frog-fish show off an array of spots, stripes, warts, and other skin irregularities that allow them to try to be like neighboring plants or rocks.  

Images and Source: ocean.nationalgeographic.com

Snake With A False Head

image credit wikifaunia.com

Did you know that the Calabar Ground Boa (Charina reinhardtii) is pretty famous for its defensive behavior because of its extraordinary blunt head and equally blunt tail that are hard to tell apart? When threatened, it rolls into a tight ball with its head safely protected in the center of the coils and raises its tail as a false head in order to protect its real head (as shown on above image).

The Calabar Ground Boa can reach a maximum length of approximately 80 – 100 cm. Its scales are black or dark brown, scattered with red or orange. The tail may be ringed or have a partial ring of bright white scales. The Boas small mouth is not suited to large prey, thus it hunts on small mammals, often invading their tunnels and nests. It may wait for the adults to leave the nest, after which it will enter to eat whole litters at a time. 

Calabar Boas are a burrowing species, and hardly ever come above ground during daylight hours. On the other hand, they can be extremely active at night, and under a red night lamp can be a very fascinating species to observe….

Meet The World's Largest Insect

image credit wikipedia 

I recall seeing a Stick insect for the very first time in my life when I was a little girl, I was playing in my backyard. People used to tell me that these insects were actually very poisonous and I grew up believing so. However only recently did I discover quite a few interesting facts about these unique insects, and I also found out that they are not poisonous! 

With such long and narrow bodies, it is not surprising that Stick insects are known as one of the world’s longest insects. Apparently there are over 3.000 species of walking sticks which may range in shape and size from approximately 3 cm to 30 cm in length. Can you imagine an insect that is as long as your school ruler! 

Stick insects are expertly camouflaged by pretending to be pieces of wood. Some even have spikes on their bodies, so they look like twigs from the bushes. Most predators would have a tough time finding them amongst all the twigs. Should a predator grab hold of a Stick insect´s leg, it can make an easy escape by giving up a leg, using a special muscle to break it off at a weak joint. Juvenile Stick insects will regenerate the lost limb the next time they molt, and in some cases adult Stick insects are capable of forcing themselves to molt again to recover the missing limb. 

The Stick insect is a herbivorous animal - in other words its diet is purely vegetarian. It feeds on leaves and other green plants as well as odd berries or fruit. Stick insects are capable of reproducing parthenogenetically, without the need for males. A female may lay more than 1000 eggs (depending on the species), by dropping them randomly on the forest floor, sticking them to leaves or bark, or placing them in the soil. Her eggs are cleverly camouflaged to look like seeds and may remain dormant for a full season or more before hatching. The nymphs are born already closely resembling the adult stick insect.

Meet The Slowest Mammal In The World

Two-toed-sloth National Geographic

The tropical forests of Central and South America are the home of Sloths, which are renowned for being the slowest mammals in the world. In fact, they are so incredibly inactive that algae actually develops on their fur. The plants give the fur a greenish color that serves as a useful camouflage for the sloths (it helps them blend in with the green leaves of their rain forest home).

There are two main species of sloths, they are known as the two-toed sloths (genus Choleopus) and three-toed sloths (genus Bradypus). These sloths are identified by the number of long, claws that they have on their front feet. Two-toed sloths are somewhat larger and tend to spend more time hanging upside-down than the three-toed sloths, who will often sit upright on a tree branch. The facial coloring of the three-toed sloth makes them look like they're always smiling. Three-toed sloths also have an advantage that not many other mammals have; they possess extra neck vertebrae that allow them to turn their heads almost all the way around!

Three-toed-sloth Wikipedia

Sloths spend most of their life hanging from trees, and are generally nocturnal animals. Their strong grip comes from their long claws which are used as hooks. These drowsy tree-dwellers sleep a lot – about 15 to 20 hours every day! And even when they are wide awake, they barely move at all. The two-toed sloths are generally silent. They eat primarily leaves, but also shoots, and fruits from the trees and get most of the water they need from juicy plants. Their bodily functions are so slow that they come down to the ground to relieve themselves only once a week. Once on land, they slowly move about by digging their front claws into the dirt and dragging their bellies across the ground. If caught, these animals have no chance to escape predators, such as big cats, and must try to defend themselves by biting fiercely, hissing, slashing with their claws, and shrieking. This might sound strange, but apparently sloths are surprisingly good swimmers. They sometimes fall directly from rain forest trees into rivers and stroke efficiently with their long arms.

The three-toed sloths are known to emit a long, high-pitched scream that echoes through the forests as "ahh-eee". Because of this cry, these sloths are even nicknamed "ai" (pronounced "eye") in Latin America. Two-toed sloths do well in captivity, on the other hand, three-toed sloths don't.

Source: National Geographic

Intelligent Creature With Three Hearts

The above image that you are looking at is a beautiful Blue-ringed Octopus in the sea. These guys are master in camouflage; they can change color as well as skin texture. This color-changing ability is used for protection against predators and also to communicate with or warn other octopuses. In several species, they are capable of taking on the prickly appearance of seaweed or even the uneven texture of a rock, amongst other disguises. On the other hand, other species are limited to relatively pattern less shades of one color, and limited skin texture.

Octopuses move around by crawling or swimming. Some have even been observed walking on two arms, while at the same time resembling plant matter. When they are hungry or in some sort of danger, they flee quickly by swimming headfirst with their eight arms trailing behind and if we are lucky we may get to see what´s called jet propulsion which is the only time you´ll see an octopus go real fast. Most octopuses do not have internal or external skeleton, this enables them to squeeze through very tight places. Another interesting thing about octopuses is that they have three hearts. Two of them pump blood through each of the two gills, and at the same time the third heart pumps blood through the body.

I wouldn’t recommend having these guys as pets because they often escape even from supposedly secure tanks, due to their problem solving skills, mobility and lack of rigid structure. They are capable of breaking out from their aquariums and sometimes into others looking for food. Octopuses have been observed playing in their aquariums by repeatedly releasing bottles or toys into a circular current and then catching them. They are highly intelligent creatures, possibly the most intelligent of all invertebrates.

Insect Camouflage in Nature

Many insects blend into their surroundings so completely that it is difficult to see them. They possess some form of disguise called camouflage, for many reasons, one of them is to deceive predators. Camouflage is one of the secret weapons that these insects have to defend themselves from being captured by their natural enemies.

Among the beautiful surroundings that nature has to offer us, there are many disguised insects. Some “caterpillars” carry out the shape and color of the leaf so perfectly that it makes the caterpillar seem as if it is part of the leaf. They can move freely among the leaves without being noticed. Another interesting insect is the “leaf insect” which has a flat body and, as its name suggests, looks remarkably like a leaf in appearance. The wings, antennae, and legs are all leaf-shaped too. Its color varies from wine red to grass green, with shadings of brown. During the daytime hours it is extremely still – so still that it looks like loose or dead leaf on the ground. With the coming of darkness, it starts to move, and during the night it moves around freely.

Insects are also outstanding imitators. Imitation is one of the ways they have to watch themselves from their natural enemies. Some insects take on the appearance of another animal to deceive a predator. This kind of imitation is called mimicry. The owlet moth provides a fascinating example of mimicry. The markings on the lower part of its wings look like the two big eyes of an owl. When the wings are folded and the moth is relaxing, the design is not visible. But when the moth is threatened by a predator, which is usually a bird, it unfolds its wings and the two eyes suddenly come into sight like the eyes of an owl. Startled, the predator flies away, this helps the owlet moth gain a few seconds to fly away as well.